The Macedonian
Page 49
Clever boy, the old king thought, half tempted to laugh. Clever, clever boy.
In its way, it was almost beautiful.
Yet Bardylis knew his own honor was at stake, so his grandson could not be allowed to remain a hostage. Pleuratos might be good for nothing now, but it was still necessary to buy him back.
The next morning the kings of Illyria and Macedon took a walk together around the fortifications of Pisoderi.
“It is just like the old days, when the situation was reversed and you were my hostage,” Bardylis said, supporting his bad leg by resting a hand on Philip’s shoulder. “Except now I have to reach a little higher—you have grown.”
“It has been eleven years, Great-Grandfather.”
“And now, instead of protecting you against Pleuratos, I must protect him from you.”
“It is not from me that he needs protection.”
Bardylis nodded, acknowledging the truth of the observation.
“No, not anymore, for the damage is done. You have broken him so that he can never be made whole again.”
“I have done what was necessary to protect my people,” Philip answered, perhaps a little more stiffly than he had intended.
“Don’t imagine that I blame you.” The old man moved his hand in a gesture of protest. “I would have done the same in your place. Yet understand, while we are haggling over the terms of his release, that Pleuratos has become a liability to me now. I will redeem him from captivity only to satisfy the demands of honor and, as you know, no true Dardanian values his honor at too excessive a price. I would advise you to be moderate in your demands.”
He looked up at his great-grandson and smiled, but they both understood that the jest had been in earnest.
“Then you had best hear right away what I will accept as his ransom.”
When Philip told him, the king of the Illyrians threw back his head and roared with laughter.
Then five days later, when Bardylis felt fully rested, the Illyrians began their journey home. Pleuratos was among them—his chains had been struck off that morning and he was given a horse. He rode beside his grandfather, and for two days he did not speak a word.
On the third day, when they were at last back in their own domain, he broke his silence.
“What did you pay him?” he asked, his voice strained and rusty sounding. Then he cleared his throat and spat on the ground.
“What he asked,” Bardylis answered calmly.
“And what was that?”
“Your daughter.”
“Audata?”
“Have you another? Yes, of course Audata.”
“She has refused every suitor who has sought her hand. She will not consent.”
“She will be delighted.”
They rode on in silence for a long time.
“That boy will imagine himself as having a claim upon the throne,” Pleuratos said at last.
“I doubt if such was his motive, but if it is so, I would welcome it.” The old king favored his grandson with a smile full of mischief. “I have need of a successor.”
* * *
Yet no one who saw King Philip at his betrothal ceremony could have imagined that he had contracted this marriage for reasons of state.
It was nearly winter before the Lady Audata arrived in her future husband’s capital. She had traveled as far as the border with Lynkos attended by a large company of her great-grandfather’s retainers, not only to do her honor but to safeguard the fifty talents of gold that accompanied her—there was a certain polite diplomatic confusion as to whether this constituted the lady’s dowry or was the first repayment of tribute under the terms of the new treaty of peace, or might perhaps do service for both. Once she had crossed into Macedonia, however, she was under the king’s protection and Philip himself made up one of her escort.
It would not have been considered seemly for the young couple to meet face-to-face outside the presence of the bride’s family, but as he rode beside her covered chair as they followed the road south it was sometimes possible for them to exchange a few words through the curtain that shaded her from the observation of the world. That seemed to be enough. Philip was too obviously pleased with his choice of a wife to even notice the amusement of his friends.
Once they had arrived in Pella, Philip abandoned his own apartments to the Lady Audata and went to Glaukon’s house to use the bed he had slept in as a child. Every dawn the old steward made breakfast for himself and his king, and then Philip, too restless to attend to anything else, usually went hunting. He was not so much irritable as distracted, but the effect was much the same. Everyone was glad that the betrothal period was to be short.
It was Glaukon who saw the king’s bride every day, and at night Philip would question him closely about how she looked and what she said and whether she seemed happy. In the mornings he performed a similar service for the Lady Audata. It quickly became apparent to him that these two young people were very much in love, a fact that pleased but at first also mystified him. How had such a thing happened when they were almost unknown to one another? The lady, who was not even twenty, had been still a child when Philip was a hostage among the Illyrians. Certainly in all those years Philip had never mentioned her, and yet the strange intimacy between them seemed a thing of long standing. It was a riddle.
But then many things about Philip were a riddle.
Glaukon happened to be standing behind them during the betrothal ceremony, and he noticed how, while Philip pronounced the ritual formula announcing his intention to take this woman in lawful marriage, their hands sought each other, the fingers sliding together as if from established habit.
They will be happy, the old man thought. And perhaps at last my boy will find a little peace.
On the night of their wedding everyone said there would be snow by morning, but the skies were still clear by the time the wedding car took the king and his new wife through the streets of the royal quarter. Glaukon had arranged the feast for the king’s guests and stood on the palace steps waiting to welcome his master when he arrived and to tell him that nothing had been left undone. It was a brief moment of quiet in a long and hectic day that was far from over.
In the night sky he could see the constellation of the Toiling Man shining in the west, and he remembered another night when he had left these precincts carrying a newborn child home for his grieving wife to nurse. Who could have expected…?
And yet, in a way, he had always expected it. The gods did not make promises idly.
In the distance he heard the sound of many voices—it was the wedding song. Philip, king of Macedon, was coming home.
FORGE BOOKS BY NICHOLAS GUILD
Blood Ties
The Ironsmith
The Spartan Dagger
The Macedonian
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NICHOLAS GUILD was born in Belmont, California, and attended Occidental College and the University of California at Berkeley. He taught at Clemson and Ohio State before turning full-time to writing fiction. He has published a dozen novels, several of which were international bestsellers, including The Assyrian, The Blood Star, and Angel. Guild now lives in Frederick, Maryland. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Forge Books by Nicholas Guild
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE MACEDONIAN
Copyright © 2017 by Nicholas Guild
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Chase Stone
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7846-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6161-9 (ebook)
eISBN 9781466861619
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First Edition: December 2017